Wikipedia:Featured article review/Venus/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 19:04, 8 January 2008.

Review commentary

 * Notifications left at WP Astronomy, WP Astronomical objects and WP Solar System, as well as Wiki alf, CKatz and BillC.  Serendi pod  ous  00:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This article is very good, but it is nowhere near as good as it needs to be. Its levels of citation and comprehensiveness are not anywhere close to those of the other planetary articles. Plus, a recent spate of information from ESA has completely outdated much of this information, yet no effort has been made to include it.  Serendi pod ous  10:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please follow the notification instructions at WP:FAR to notify relevant WikiProjects and involved editors, using Venus and post a list of notifications at the top of this FAR. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added a note to the Solar System and astronomical objects wikiprojects, but I don't know who the main editors are for this article.  Serendi pod ous  15:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The now departed Worldtraveller wrote about two-thirds of the article prior to it becoming featured. I wrote the remainder on exploration and Venus in Culture. Others, of course, have added much to it since. &mdash; BillC talk 22:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Serendipodous, I left you a sample at the top of this page. Next, as in the WP:FAR instructions, please click here, notice the top editors, notify them on their talk pages using Venus, and complete the list above.  Thanks, Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I will start work on bolstering the referencing in the next day or two. Can you highlight some of the recent spate of information from ESA that has completely outdated much of the article? &mdash; BillC talk 15:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This page links to five separate issues that Venus Express has updated.  Serendi pod ous  15:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Note Please state where you feel the referencing is inadequate. Joelito (talk) 22:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comparing Venus to Mars reveals certain elements are not as well covered. For instance, Venus has no climate section. Its geography section mentions a number of interesting features, without going into any detail as to how they formed or what they are. There is no mention of Eve, Venus's prime meridian, and no mention of Venus's lava canyons like Styx. It's magnetosphere section barely rates a paragraph. The cultural section barely mentions the "morning star" and "evening star" without going into much detail about their cultural and historical significance (Mars gets an entire subsection on science fiction, for instance).  Serendi pod ous  14:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The absence of a climate section is because, as the article says, Venus has no climate: The surface of Venus is effectively isothermal; it retains a constant temperature between day and night and between the equator and the poles. The planet's minute axial tilt (less than three degrees, compared with 23 degrees for Earth), also minimises seasonal temperature variation. The only appreciable variation in temperature occurs with altitude. I suppose we could include a table of temperature against altitude, but would it add much? Does the data for it exist?
 * That absence of climate in itself would be worth noting in more detail. Also, that Venus Express seems to have confirmed lightning in the atmosphere would suggest there is more to Venus's climate than initially thought.  Serendi pod ous  01:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How could there possibly be even more detail about the absence of something? I'm not trying to be facetious; just trying to understand what it is you're expecting.  --Doradus (talk) 20:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There are processes at work in Venus's atmosphere that maintain this lack of climate. It might be a good idea to go into detail about what they are and how they work.  Serendi pod ous  16:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The data for a section on the mythological use of Venus is under Hesperus; does the utterly fictional pulp SF Venus, with its world sea, Mesozoic vegetation, and lush women, belong in this article, or can we make do with see also's to Leigh Brackett, C. S. Lewis and Stanley Weinbaum? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure. Are Venusians as entrenched in popular culture to the extent that Martians are?  Serendi pod ous  01:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not where I come from; for one thing, there was never a standard "Venusian": compare Heinlein's to C. L. Moore's; and the flying saucer people have added a few more. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Notifications still not done, so I bolded the note above. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 06:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the issues suggested that this article has can be summed up as follows:
 * Lack of citations
 * Lack of comprehensiveness on:
 * Recent science developments, in particular atmospheric and climate science
 * Venus in culture, such as science fiction and the evening and morning star

The lack of citations in parts in the article I can accept, and am happy to accept this, for the parts that suffer from this are the exploration and cultural sections, which were my contributions. I wrote earlier that I would endeavour to bolster the referencing in the article; other wiki and non-wiki activities have kept me from doing this, but I should have time over the holiday season. Although much do not constitute particularly controversial statements ("The Venera 3 probe crash-landed on Venus on 1 March 1966"), but I agree it needs better referencing.

With regard to the comprehensiveness of the article about Venus in science fiction, I'm not sure what substantially more could be written here without descending into a list of Sci-Fi associations, which already exists at Venus in fiction. Venus doesn't have the same historical traction in fictional literature Mars has had, perhaps for the reason that Mars is a better candidate for life. The conversation above on this matter makes reference to this, but I wasn't able to detect a consensus emerging from that: perhaps one will.

The Venus in culture section draws from a wide cross section of cultural heritage including mentions of the many cultures that viewed the plant as two separate bodies. I acknowledge that it's a little disorganised with respect to cultural, geographical or historical lineage, but a bit of rearranging (and referencing) should sort that.

The recent scientific developments issue I find interesting. I find it hard to agree that 'much of the article' has become outdated, since the recent developments seem aligned with atmospheric and climatic science, and I see coverage of that, while important, unlikely to become the dominant section of an article on Venus, for there is much else to say about the planet. But the recent developments seem very recent: I tend to look in on the Venus Express website every few weeks and, though I might be mistaken, the link you added here ultimately refers to a series of science press releases that were issued by ESA on 28 November. If so, perhaps the charge that 'no effort has been made to include it' is a little unjust, as it was made only ten days after the press release. This is, after all, an encyclopaedia article, and not a science news blog. I may of course have misread your meaning here, so please correct me in this, or any other regard. &mdash; BillC talk 00:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sorry about that. I'm a bit overloaded at the moment and sometimes I get the feeling that I'm carrying the entire solar system topic on my shoulders. Ruslik emailed me a series of science papers on the new discoveries. I'm planning on getting going on them as soon as I finish Europa.  Serendi pod ous  00:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That is an entirely self-appointed feeling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.182.106 (talk) 00:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness and not up-to-date material (1b) and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 16:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep (though I would of course say that.) Since the FAR was raised, 15 more references have been added to the article, a cn-tagged sentences has been removed and another provided with a reference (there are no further), referenced text describing some of the atmospheric science findings of Venus Express which were released on 28 November has been added, and a discussion of Venus's prime meridian added. &mdash; BillC talk 23:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep BillC's revisions have addressed my initial concerns. The current revision is fine by me.  Serendi pod ous  23:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.